Happy holidays! With an altercation or two

By Barbara Clark

Wednesday

Dec 6, 2017 at 11:22 AMDec 6, 2017 at 11:22 AM

It’s all in fun, as the Black Box Theater at Cotuit Center for the Arts presents a humor-filled take on the hysterical holiday distractions that are common to many of us but are not so often depicted or singled out in more traditional theater productions at this time of year.

“Christmas Shorts” may just be the perfect antidote to the more familiar entertainments of the season. “Shorts” includes five short holiday comedies that present off-beat takes on family and friendship, alongside elves, Christmas cards, nativity plays and other tried and true holiday themes.

Cape Cod actor, director and improv teacher Melinda Gallant directed “Shorts” as a staged reading last year for CCftA’s Second Wednesday Theater, and the well-received event inspired her to helm a new production of the show this year in the Black Box, staging the short playlets for a larger audience. Gallant noted that the show has a timely zaniness: “In the times we’re living in, the fun thing about this is, it almost makes you feel that you’re not crazy.”

“Christmas Shorts,” by Emmy-winning writer and playwright Matt Hoverman, was a winner at the 2009 Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival. In its New York City incarnation, a dozen actors performed parts in the five comedies. At the Black Box, four talented local actors will perform “all these crazy characters,” according to Gallant. Actor Janet Geist Moore is the only returnee from last season’s reading; she’s joined by Charlotte Green, Bobby Genereau and Frank Hughes Jr. All four actors, Gallant said, rise to the challenge of playing a variety of different people across all five of the short comedies. All are familiar to local audiences from their participation in area theaters from Woods Hole to Orleans, with acting experience that ranges from improv comedy to Shakespeare.

One of the five playlets, “Going Home,” will no doubt have a familiar ring for many. A couple of newlyweds are determined to spend Christmas together, away from their dysfunctional families, but the lure of the family visit, even with all the chaos at holiday time, is stronger than they realize. It’s hard to break the pattern - “You always go home for Christmas,” said Gallant.

The yuletide message is mixed in “The Student,” about an off-beat student-teacher conference right before the holidays.

“A Christmas Witch” explores the limits of male bonding as two longtime buddies find their friendship tested when an ex-girlfriend unexpectedly comes between them.

In “Xmas Cards,” a well-meaning wife “helps” her husband as they undertake to write that stack of yearly holiday messages. What could go wrong?

There’s a distinctly different take in “Nativity,” as an altercation erupts in the waiting room at a fertility center when two strangers meet, each costumed up for separate Christmas pageants.

The collection leans in to the hilarious and chaotic, in a wry, refreshing retake on the holiday craziness and diversions familiar to most of us. Gallant describes the plays as “naughty,” as well as over-the-top “nonsensical and fun.” The evening “takes you out of yourself,” she said, adding that the show is “for mature kids of all ages.”

The more intimate venue of the Black Box lends itself to a less formal kind of performance that’s different from what takes place in a larger theater venue, Gallant said, and characters have an opportunity to engage the audience in a more personal way. The Cotuit venue is unique, she said, in that “it can do this kind of theatre.”

What keeps these five comedies from becoming a general put-down of the holidays? Gallant was emphatic about the production’s sense of heart: “In these very human characters you see people you know, including yourself.” She added, “The characters are true, and in fact they all love the holiday season.”

See the show

“Christmas Shorts,” directed by Melinda Gallant, is on stage at the Black Box Theater through Dec. 23, with performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 1 p.m. Sundays.